


Trust And Other Things That Go Bump In The Night

by Trovia



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Gen, Male Friendship, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:37:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6306889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trovia/pseuds/Trovia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Mockingjay rebellion ended when the dead started walking, and two groups of survivors have joined forces. </p><p>Wherein Finnick keeps his eyes on Daryl, Carol and Haymitch play an advanced game of charade, and Katniss’ questions for strangers are very different from Rick’s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust And Other Things That Go Bump In The Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PlainJaneEyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlainJaneEyre/gifts).



> This is for PlaneJaneEyre who deserved distraction two weeks ago but I was not that fast. She prompted me to write about Finnick, Haymitch, and Katniss in the zombie apocalypse. I hope you'll like it! 
> 
> Thank you very much for betaing, mildred_of_midgard. :)
> 
> Warnings: Canon-typical violence. Discussion of forced prostitution, alcoholism, and zombification of beloved characters. Mentions of past character deaths, canon and otherwise. An allusion to necrophilia (I’m so sorry). Kat referring to clinical depression as “going mad.”

It had been seven months since the outbreak, seven months since the mountain of District Thirteen had fallen from the inside and the few last television transmissions from the Capitol told them that the same had happened everywhere outside as well. Finnick hardened his jaw, ducking away from a walker, stabbing another in the eye fluidly, smoothly. Knowing Daryl followed right behind him, taking point with his crossbow – the other walker was down before Finnick could swirl back around to it. Knowing that Annie was safe with Carol and Sasha, who protected her and their unborn child. It had been seven months, and in his dreams, the old world had long since fused with this new one, flesh rotting off the faces of the tributes he’d killed, walkers paying to fuck him. He’d grown to accept that the Games would haunt him, even now that the apocalypse had ended them for good, just like he’d grown to accept that his killing skills would be what kept him alive in their new war, all over again. 

The expanse of the fallen District Ten covered hundreds of miles full of walkers, but they had come here anyway, rather than stay in the empty and wild land in-between, because the former districts were the only places where you’d find food and weapons and clothes to wear. Their new Cornucopias in their new Games. 

The last walker was down. Breathing hard, Finnick looked around to exchange a look with Daryl, who nodded, had a last sharp look around himself, then lowered his crossbow, and waited for Finnick to fall into step with him on their way back to the others; they were securing the perimeter of a barn for the night. Daryl did so with a startling grace of his own, the kind a Capitol Games audience wouldn’t have been able to see, too distracted by his ragged Nine poacher looks, the grime covering him up. But he was as quiet as a panther, bleeding danger. Finnick could feel it prickling on his own skin, the threat that it posed, every instinct he had screaming at him to never turn his eyes off that man. 

He wasn’t surprised when the bowman paused to give him an uneasy look, noticing the attention on him. “What?” 

The Capitol had fallen. They were past pretenses, past decorum. Finnick could be who he wanted to be, say what he wanted to say. 

“In a Games,” he told the other man, “you’d have been the first tribute I’d have taken out.” 

Daryl huffed. He could have retorted that he’d like to see Finnick try. When he didn’t, it probably was because he’d seen Finnick’s Games, everybody had seen Finnick’s Games, and he was an experienced enough fighter to know that it was rarely that easy. They’d fought together long enough; they respected each other’s skill. 

It had been a compliment, after all. 

Instead, Daryl just said, “Good thing it ain’t people fightin’ people anymore then.” 

Finnick attempted a smirk. Shrugging the matter off, he sheathed his knife and followed the other man back to the others, done killing for now. 

That was true; that was a considerable improvement compared to before. 

So there was that. 

* * *

It had been easy enough to decide that they would head for District Two. If any district stood a chance to gain control of the outbreak, they all had agreed, it was the one with the three generations of Games school students, trained specifically to kill in close combat. They’d only have to cross Districts Nine and Ten to make it there. 

District Nine had been where they united forces with Rick Grimes’ little ragtag group of survivors. Three months later, Haymitch felt reasonably sure that none of them would attempt to backstab the victors, at least not in a literal fashion. District folk didn’t trust victors easily, not even once the rebellion started – a lifetime of seeing the likes of Finnick and Johanna fucking their way through the Capitol beds, the likes of Haymitch and Mags collaborating with the enemy, had taken care of that. 

That didn’t mean that they’d dropped the sweet and innocent and harmless act that some of them were trying to pull on them, though. 

Haymitch smirked at himself when he sauntered up to Carol, standing guard at the outer camp perimeter with her Peacekeeper blaster slung over her shoulder. She made for a slender and deceptively meager silhouette in the dark. A quick succession of looks and expressions passed between them when he handed her a bowl with the Ten livestock special of the night: She shifted the weight of her blaster as if so very uncomfortable with the weapon, he stopped just short of snorting at her for it, she noticed, he noticed, she smiled – half in that bedraggled, insecure way she put on, half letting him glimpse at the person underneath. That person, he assumed, had to have a brilliant smile that changed her whole face. The thought left him a little uncomfortable, though. 

Burying his hands in his pockets, Haymitch let his gaze wander over the meadows surrounding the barn. If you squinted, you could see a faraway walker making its way through the night. 

“Something on your mind tonight, Snuggles?” Carol asked after a while without turning to look at him, face perfectly straight and this time, Haymitch really did snort at her. Why he had gotten to share the dubious honor of the cutesy pet names with Dixon, he wasn’t sure. 

Probably she just enjoyed making grumpy men squirm. 

“Thinking about sneaking out,” he easily said. “There’s got to be a pub somewhere out there that’s got some white liquor left in it.” He was rewarded by Carol rolling her eyes at him. 

“You go for whole days without thinking about drinking now, don’t lie to me,” she said. “You’re not half as big a drunk as you want us to think. I’m starting to wonder if you just put on an act when we saw you on the television, too, and you never were.”

“Trust me, I was,” Haymitch breathed. 

It was true, though, he guessed. A year ago, he’d never have admitted that, unless he could make a joke out of it. After those excruciating weeks of detox in Thirteen, he’d probably have gone right back to drinking if the world hadn’t gone to shit just about then. 

Now, strangely, it almost appeared as if he might have become one of the few people who hadn’t lost anything in the outbreak, just gained things. He and Carol had that in common. 

A noise that might as well have been a growl startled him out of his reverie. Like one, he and Carol reached for their weapons, he for his throwing knives, she for her blaster. But seconds passed, and nothing happened. 

This time, Carol gave him a real smile when they exchanged a look. She took a deep breath, slinging her blaster back on her shoulder in a display of calm control that really had very little similarity to a meager, battered wife. Awkwardly, Haymitch tried to decide what to do with his hands, settling eventually on crossing them in front of his chest. 

Seemed like he’d been right about how a smile would make her look real pretty. 

Neither of them had ever fooled the other with their harmless act, was the thing, not even for a minute. Carol knew full well that his blather about booze was just for show; it was when he grew quiet that she suddenly materialized at his side. Haymitch didn’t feel like he was managing to look out for her like that back, but somehow she seemed to appreciate every time he snorted audibly when somebody underestimated her. 

They stood there for a while, none of them talking anymore, and when he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye the next time, he had to suppress a completely out-of-character urge to reach out, brush a short curl of hair behind her ear. 

_And why not?_ a little voice in his head couldn’t help but whisper. 

It was a new world, after all. 

* * *

It was long past first watch. Most of their group had lain down for the night, picking whatever corner of the barn they’d decided felt less drafty than the other. Katniss, however, knew herself well enough to be aware she wouldn’t be able to sleep just yet. She knew, if she did, she’d just dream of Prim. 

Raising quietly so that she wouldn’t wake Peeta, she made her way over to the fireplace they’d built at the barn gates, where the smoke could waft outside. Now its embers were dying, the last of their heat warming Rick Grimes. The older man leaned close to it against the wall, his sleeping child in one practiced arm. When she sat down across from him with her legs crossed, he gave her a nod; she could feel him scanning her swiftly, reading more than she was comfortable with. Carl only slept some feet away, but Kat knew that nothing but real danger would wake that boy; it was an eerie special skill that he had developed. 

Carl was the reason she had never gotten a good opportunity to size up the older Grimes. Carl had orbited the former Mockingjay from day one, full of awe. He was young enough to still think of her as just a hero, much like his father was to him. 

Kat had a sense, though, that Rick understood the gritty reality hidden behind that word as well as she did. 

She’d been sizing him up openly, telegraphing her intent, so she probably shouldn’t have been surprised when he stated, very factually, “You don’t trust me.” 

Kat shrugged and shook her head at once, not seeing why she should deny it. 

Rick rocked Judith softly against his chest when she squirmed in her sleep, seemingly without noticing consciously. His eyes were trained on Kat, taking her in in a very aware way that stood in contrast to his casual drawl. “You gotta admit that that’s rich,” he pointed out. “It ain’t my group that brought a drunk and a morphling addict along. People with flashbacks. People who might wake up screaming and bring a herd of walkers down on us. A man who can’t tell anymore what’s real and what ain’t.”

The last one made her flinch, despite everything that had happened. She didn’t want to think about whether Peeta would still manage to recover. 

She could have pointed out that both Haymitch and Jo were sober; they simply had no drugs they could take. Annie had killed more walkers than Rick and Carl together. Rick’s group would start having their own nightmares soon enough. Instead, she hardened her face, and said, “You’re the one that drags a baby along,” because _that_ could get them killed as well. 

Rick grimaced, as if to say, _touché_. 

Her gaze followed his hand tightening on Judith’s back just so, keeping her safe. 

A long moment passed. Kat watched the man in front of her, listening for the sounds of the barn – rustling hay when someone turned in their sleep, a mutter here, a snore there, no noise from the guard outside because that was Sasha’s shift and Sasha never made any noise. Rick waited her out. He looked resigned, and too awake, and sharp. 

“What side were you on when the rebellion started in Nine?” she eventually asked. 

Kat knew that little litmus test that Rick liked to use on new people they met – _how many walkers have you killed? how many people?_ – and she openly admitted that she found it a little bit silly. The audacity of it, most of all. Finnick had smirked at Rick when he first asked him that, telling him if he really wanted to know, he should rewatch their Games and fucking _count._ She still let him ask them when they met new people, though; there was no harm in it. However, she did have some questions of her own. 

Rick didn’t understand them, she knew, because he didn’t think that their lives before the outbreak counted anymore. That in itself was one thing about that man that kept eating away at her. She’d never, in actuality, asked him this question before, though. 

At least, Rick Grimes was honest. His eyes never left hers, and he didn’t blink, when he said, “We were on the side that kept their heads down, and followed the orders, and we clapped when we were supposed to clap, and we cheered when we were supposed to cheer. I had a son, and a wife. I was shot during the uprising. I woke up in a hospital swarming with walkers, the fences had fallen, and it took me weeks to find Lori and Carl and Shane.”

Katniss pressed her lips together. 

District people didn’t get to stay in hospitals. Twelve hadn’t even _had_ a hospital. 

“You were a Peacekeeper,” she whispered, her suspicions confirmed, and he nodded. 

“Yeah. I was a Peacekeeper. And when they told me to shoot, I shot.”

Her question didn’t require a follow-up most of the time, but Rick had been a _Peacekeeper,_ and she had to know. “ _Why?_ ”

Rick Grimes didn’t think it mattered, what had happened before the outbreak, because Rick Grimes hadn’t suffered. He hadn’t gone hungry in a district so starved that they’d known their own kind of dead men walking long before the outbreak; his son probably would never have been reaped because Peacekeeper children never got reaped, his wife would have gone to a _hospital_ to give birth. 

Katniss, on the other hand, had seen her district burn. She’d seen her sister reaped. She’d seen her mother go mad and people losing so much that they couldn’t even consider fighting anymore. 

Rick softly stroked Judith’s head. Although she still seemed to be asleep, her tiny hand was trying to grab at his shirt. 

“Because,” he said quietly, not having to look at his daughter, his son, “I had too much to lose.” 

Kat took a deep breath. Of course, she thought of Prim. Prim who’d trembled all over when her name was called, Prim who’d wanted to be a healer, Prim who’d loved that stupid cat. Prim had been among the first infected in the mountain of Thirteen, and when she’d died in her sleep and come back, the thing she’d become had shuffled for the other warm body in the room, chin bloody, eyes void. In the end it had been Jo who’d killed her, once they were sure she really wasn’t Prim anymore, because Kat had been crying too hard, like she was losing her mind. It was the one thing she hadn’t been able to do for her sister. 

Fact was, if there hadn’t been a Quarter Quell, she’d never have joined any rebellion. Never. She’d have done anything to just keep Prim safe. She _had._

Suddenly she felt tired, bone-tired like she hadn’t in days, so she picked herself up from her spot at the fireplace without another word. 

What else was there to say, after all? 

Rick followed the motion with his eyes. 

“You trust me less than before now?” he asked, raising his eyebrows just so. 

A part of Kat would always be a tribute. So it hadn’t escaped her attention that Rick had spent this entire conversation backed into a corner by her and the fireplace, a baby in his arms, so he’d never have been able to reach a weapon in time if she had chosen to attack him. He’d never tensed. He’d never felt threatened by her, and not because he was stupid enough to believe she couldn’t kill him if she wanted to, or that she’d be all happy with his answers. 

Apparently, he trusted her. 

“No,” Kat said.

Time to call it a night.


End file.
